Let's be honest here: I'm tired of writing or saying that Detroit is nothing like the movies, media, news articles and any other medium that ever said anything about the city. It has become a mantra, something that us, as the DukeEngage Detroit cohort, learned to say and repeat in robotic mannerisms whenever anyone asks us what we think of the city, or any variation of the question.

Sure, the city of Detroit is not like what we thought we knew about it. But why would it be?

Call me weird or rude if you want to, but it's time people stop focusing on the past and comparing their preconceived notions to what our eyes really see in Detroit, and I'm including myself in this. It doesn't really help anyone.

Cities aren't simple objects that can be accurately portrayed, to have their essence and values condensed into a measly vial. Cities are complex organisms, working engines that play with both power and hope, that encapsulate the extremes of our society and provide us with a means of organization. And you can't really know them until you become a part of them, not by simply visiting, but by living in them – experiencing its struggles, giving back to its community, connecting to its people.

We need to recognize the reality as it is, and to have the courage and creativity to imagine how it could be.

I'm not saying any of this is easy. This week, for this post you're reading right now, I was supposed to find a news article that struck me for some reason, and to write about it. This is the third hour I spent trying to find such article, just today, and everything I've seen so far is either another crime story, a sports article, or the more rare unrealistic and overly optimistic predictions on how Detroit will become Silicon Valley in the next few months, if it already isn't. Yes, the media does provide a predominantly negative view of the city, but it's not as if those crimes never happened. And yes, we've seen how impactful is the entrepreneurship in Detroit, but instead of being moved by the desire for greater and greater profit margins, as it happens in Silicon Valley, here the goal is more or less centered around rebuilding communities.

Detroit is not a war zone, but it's not the paradise some try to make it seem like. It's both in low levels, like one article on the 21th page of my Google search seemed to understand. Out of all the amazing achievements of the city in the past years, from public service to flourishing startups, the vast majority is concentrated in an area of 7.2 square miles in a city almost 20 times that size, called Downtown Detroit. Away from this area, the city still has a long road to cover.

It's a tale of two cities.

While it seems that complaining about Detroit has become almost a taboo in the city, it is only by recognizing reality as it is that we can even envision what the future could be like. Although I was sure since the beginning of the program that I wouldn't be able to impact Detroit in a significant way, I knew that I could, at least, show the world the way I see the city. We most likely won't leave Detroit with multiple nonprofit projects, or having tremendously improved the quality of life of the neighborhoods we work in. But if there's one thing we can do, that thing is to raise awareness about the things that strike us the most, to be the starting point for change. And maybe, one day, we might not have a tale of two cities in the city of Detroit.

As a former DukeEngage Detroit participant, I agree with a lot of what you have expressed here! My only objection: don't underestimate the impact you can have. You and Detroit get excatly what you put into the experience! That's the beauty of Detroit, its "big enough to matter in the world, but small enough for you to matter in it"